An "Iron Scheer" is to be erected at Cuxhaven in honour of the
"victor" of the Battle of Horn Reef. It is thought, however, that lead
would be more appropriate than iron for the occasion. It runs more
easily under fire.
* * *
"I want," said Mr. ROOSEVELT, at Oyster Bay, "to tell you newspaper
men that it is useless to come to see me. I have nothing to say." As
however some of them had come quite a long way to see him, he might at
least have made a noise like a Bull Moose.
* * *
Asked as to the nature of his disability, an appellant informed one of
the London Tribunals that he was a member of the V.T.C. This studied
insult to a fine body of men was, we are happy to say, repudiated by
the Tribunal, which advised the applicant to try to join a "crack"
regiment.
* * *
No civilians being available for the work, fifty men of the Royal
Scots regiment laid half-a-mile of water main at Coggeshall Abbey
in record time. This incident should finally dispose of a popular
superstition that among the Scotch water is only a secondary
consideration.
* * *
The Water Board has spent L70 in renovating some Chippendale chairs
belonging to the New River Company. The poor shareholders are quite
helpless in the matter.
* * *
On an acre of ground, a man told the Farnham Tribunal, he kept 9 sows,
34 pigs and 1 horse, and grew a quarter-of-an-acre of mangolds and a
quarter-of-an-acre of potatoes. Asked where he kept himself the man
is understood to have reluctantly named an exclusive hotel in the West
End.
* * *
"The extra hour of daylight is turning every City man into a
gardener," says _The Daily Mail_. This must be a source of great
concern to our contemporary, according to which, if we read aright,
the majority of our public men do their work like gardeners.
* * *
"A wave of temperance might come by sending drunkards to prison for a
second offence," said Mr. MEAD at the West London Court. This remark
will cause consternation in those select circles in which a second
offence is usually an indication of a discriminating dilettantism.
* * *
"Mr. Hughes," says _The Daily Mail_, "goes to the Paris Conference
with the British ideals in his pocket." Personally, we have an idea
that things of this sort ought to be left in the Cabinet.
* * *
"This war," says _The Fishing Gazette_, "is going to provide
protection to fish from the trawlers in all places where ships sink on
trawling-grounds." That, however, is not the real issue, and we cannot
too strongly deprecate such an unscrupulous attempt on the part of our
contemporary to draw a red herring across the trail.
[Illustration: PUNCTUALITY.
_Sergeant._ "FALL IN AGIN AT 'LEVEN O'CLOCK. AN' WHEN I SAY, 'FALL IN
AT 'LEVEN O'CLOCK,' I MEAN FALL IN AT 'LEVEN. SO _FALL IN AT 'ALF-PAST
TEN_!"]
* * *
According to a New York cable, President WILSON last week headed a
procession in favour of military preparedness as an ordinary citizen
in a straw hat, blue coat, cream pants, and carrying an American flag
on his shoulders. The intensely militant note struck by the cream
pants is regarded as a body blow to the hope of the pacificists in
the party and astonished even the most chauvinistic of PRESIDENT'S
admirers.
* * *
"For anyone to keep a cow for their private supply of milk is a
luxury, and there is no necessity for it," said the Chairman of the
Chobham Tribunal, and, as a result of this ruling, a maiden lady in
the district who has long cherished the ambition of keeping a bee for
her private supply of honey has reluctantly decided to abandon the
idea.
* * *
Berlin's newest attraction is said to be a young woman named ANNA VON
BERGDORFF, who has revealed extraordinary powers of memory, and whose
chief accomplishment is to "remember and repeat without error from
twenty-five to fifty disconnected words after hearing them once." In
these circumstances it would seem to be a thousand pities that the
lady was not present when the KAISER received the news of the famous
"victory" of his Fleet in the Battle of Jutland.
* * *
In St. Louis, U.S.A., the Democratic National Convention is claiming
on behalf of President WILSON that he has "successfully steered the
ship of State throughout troublous times without involving the United
States in war." Or, as the hyphenateds put it more tersely, "Woodrow
has delivered the goods."
* * *
In a bird's-nest in a water-pipe at Sheffield a workman has discovered
a L20 Bank of England note, which, we understand, has since been
claimed by various people in the neighbourhood who have lately been
troubled by mysterious thefts of L1 and 10s. Treasury notes, as well
as by a man who alleges that he was recently robbed of that exact sum
in silver and copper coins.
* * *
A traveller who has arrived in Amsterdam from Berlin states that in
that city placards have been pasted on all the walls explaining that
the KAISER is not responsible for the War. We hope however that now it
has been brought to his notice it is not unreasonable on our part to
express the hope that he will promptly decide to go a step further and
declare his neutrality.
* * *
At an Exhibition of Substitutes now being held in Berlin a special
department displayed stage decorations, scenery and costumes made
mostly out of paper instead of wool. As a counterblast to the alleged
German superiority in matters of this sort, it is pleasant to be able
to record the fact that in our English theatres it is no uncommon
thing to see an audience made mostly out of the same material.
* * * * *